


the ocean forgets until it empties

by dinosaur



Category: One Direction (Band)
Genre: Canon Compliant, Drugs, Gender Dysphoria, Gender Identity, Other, Relationship Negotiation, Trans Character
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-10-26
Updated: 2016-10-26
Packaged: 2018-08-27 02:48:40
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,472
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8384278
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/dinosaur/pseuds/dinosaur
Summary: Niall has this incredible tendency to try and talk about really complicated gender shit whenever Louis is trying to get really high.





	

**Author's Note:**

  * For [neabee](https://archiveofourown.org/users/neabee/gifts).



> this is a very long belated gift to a bee who has been incredibly brilliant and supportive of all of my work and all of me and whom, a long time ago, asked for some niall intraband gender talks. i hope i have done you justice. thank you <3
> 
> title is an interp of [sterling and goulden by Postprior](http://tidido.com/a35184374580192/al55f1eaeaa5f3907573b6950e/t55f1eaeba5f3907573b6954c), and i would recommend putting it on, bc i do think it adds to the piece. 
> 
> louis is trans and niall is on a quest.

 

 

"It's like," Niall starts, feet shoved under Louis' thigh.

"It's like," Louis agrees. He rubs a thumb over the fragile bone of Niall's ankle.

Niall gives the corner of the ratty couch a wobbly smile.

"Like - " Niall exhales smoke hard.

Louis takes another hit to give Niall a moment, lips pressed almost too long against burning pax. It's a more contained way to smoke up but Louis' still not sure if he likes the particular brand of head high it gives. He misses his usual messy rolled blunts. Especially if Niall's gonna keep faceplanting them into philosophical stumblings through gender soon as they smoke up.

"Like." Niall presses toes into Louis' thigh muscle, "this is the only brand of vitamins you buy at the shop to get the taste of fake orange because it’s better than fake cherry but you've forgotten what you're even taking the vitamins for," Niall takes a deep breath, "and you hate oranges, anyway."

"Niall," Louis says seriously, "that's deep."

"Fucking -" Niall shoves him hard.

Louis laughs, lungs catching on smoke and grasps at Niall's cheeks. "No, shhh, shhh sunshine, I meant it. But I also mean I don't know what you mean."

" _You're_ mean."

Louis sneaks a hand under the softness of Niall's shirt, pinches at freckles he knows line the hem. Sometimes, he knows Niall's body better than his own. The thought makes his pinch gentler, makes his chin tuck down into Niall's space and his voice tumble low.

"You like me mean," he pinches Niall's soft skin together.

Niall's eyes flicker to him, flicker closed.

"Yeah," Niall whispers. "'Do."

The moment stretches. Louis knows, with the kind of clarity and dangerous apathy that weed brings in like the high tide, that he could make the moment pass, could let this conversation wash under them. The relief from responsibility peeks out from the waves. Louis could press his teeth to those freckles and Niall would let him and Niall would go back to rolling this thing into the dark and hiding it under mossy rocks. Louis will go back to being trans and out and loud and Niall will. Not.

Niall's eyelashes are trembling and damp.

Louis pulls his hand out of Niall's shirt and smooths it back into place.

"What do you mean, love?" he asks.

Being soft is hard.

Niall's pulse visibly jumps.

Louis curls just one finger under Niall's shirtsleeve. Here, the skin is spotty, a little rougher, over warm with weed and the temperamental aircon.

Niall's eyes peek open for him.

Louis pushes back the high.

"Can you explain?"

_I'm paying attention, I promise. I'm listening for your light across the sky, I promise._

Niall swallows.

"Like when you feel like you gotta fuck, need ta," Niall spits out, "but it's like some sick performance - reflex - habit in your stomach. So, you do this thing and you look down at your body and it's like what the fuck is this even, it's not mine, it's just doing this thing because I don't have anything else to do or go or be or -" Niall curls over, fighting for breath.

"Niall," Louis breathes deep, fights for the smell of Niall under weed, "nobody cares who you fuck or how."

"Yeah, they feckin do, Lou. The whole world cares."

He isn't sure if they're still talking about a metaphor of gender or a reality of sex. He isn't sure there's a difference.

"Niall," Louis pushes close, wraps a disjointed hand around the rough line of Niall's jaw, " _Nobody_ cares. They're _nobody_."

The aircon stutters on.

"Do you care?" Niall asks, too quiet.

Louis kisses the corner of Niall's mouth carefully. In this too, there isn’t a difference. "I care about you."

They're both quiet for a moment and Louis can hear the dvd distantly click over into playing again.

"I'm suffocating," Niall says, small and flat.

Louis imagines he's on the couch with a bit of tooth floss; a line strong enough to curl and flex and bring blood - unraveling at the ends. He imagines putting Niall under his teeth again and feels ill.

"I can't breathe around it, feels like I'm taffy stuck to my own roof, can't get myself off. Or," Niall's twitch, rueful or tired, “get _off_."

Louis presses his thumb as light as he can to the curve of Niall's collar. Niall looks down at his hand like it's a strange shadow.

"Remember," Niall starts, looking up at Louis finally. "When you - " Niall reaches over, slow as fog, to press a nail-bitten thumb unerringly even through worn cotton, to the scarline on Louis' left pec.

It might as well be a knife.

Louis closes his eyes for a second, then opens them to push the pax too far across the table so he isn't tempted.

"Yes," he voice crackles.

He does.

Niall nods, curls back small. "That. But, all over, not just one bit. All. Vague," A breath in. "Not," A breath out, shaky as a lamb. “just my chest.”

"Yeah," Louis says.

The dvd menu clicks over again.

Louis thinks there's a lot of things he could say. Louis thinks there's a lot of worlds in which he says them.

But they’re not in them. They’re in this one.

“How can I help?” Louis asks, instead.

Niall is looking at the endlessly looping dvd screen. Louis watches the tendons of Niall’s cheek bunch and pull like they’re caught in the cycle.

“I don’t know,” Niall breathes deep, “If you can.”

Louis nods and the back of his neck hurts, feels taut with aching for Niall, aching for Niall’s sake. He turns this thing, this trust that Niall has placed in his hands, over and over, presses his tongue to his teeth, presses the sharpness of this moment against his awareness like cinnamon to his gums.

Maybe it’s a larger cycle. A larger thing that Niall can’t say is a _thing_ because Niall can’t even say what the thing is.

Maybe there’s a fucking reason Niall always waits until Louis is three hits to the wind before pulling this shit out.

He leans over for the remote and shuts off the tv.

Niall’s eyes flicker to him, flicker away.

Louis pushes up from the side of the couch, locks his fingers around Niall’s ankle as he moves it over the side of the couch so he can press their bodies close. No more of this silly, useless separation.

Niall makes a quiet sound and Louis feels it like a bolt to his spine.

How many times has Louis let this conversation roll under them – he can’t remember. He didn’t realize- smoking _for him_ has always helped it, a way to get out of his body, shoot the shit about shitty gender shit. But he’s not Niall and Niall isn’t Zayn, sitting at the far end of the couch giving back as good as ze got.

Niall’s always gonna be Niall.

And Louis is always gonna see that that’s the most Niall as can be.

Determination lightens his hands.

He reaches for Niall the gentlest he’s ever reached for anyone.

“Niall, darling, _love_ ,” Louis says, cupping the wings of Niall’s back, the strength of the hollow bones sewn  under denim, “You don’t have to,” he breathes, feels Niall echo him, “wait to be uncertain and floaty, just to talk about something uncertain and floaty.”

Niall is watching him, white just visible around the blueblue of the oceans Niall masquerades as eyes.

How many hits did Niall really have? How long has Niall been keeping this under the wraps of lopsided joints?

Louis presses his fingers to the secret place under the curl of Niall’s hair.

“We don’t have to be high to talk about gender,” he whispers, “You can talk about it in the daylight, sunshine. It’s still real in the morning, it’s still there.”

Niall’s breath freezes against Louis’ palms.

“You’re still real in the morning, Niall,” Louis says.

And watches as the ocean overflows from Niall’s eyes.

Louis weathers the storm, because underneath it is Niall’s voice, wobbly and clinging for balance against the bow of Louis’ shoulder, whispering, “Oh, ah. I –” coughing wet, spilling against Louis’ chest, “I’m, thank you, thank – _thank you_.”

As if Louis needed gratitude for showing Niall this thing that ought to have been given to both of their hands freely and naturally, this thing he should have made lighthouse bright from across the sea, he will stoke a fire to.

“Okay,” Louis whispers back and that’s this universe, that’s them here now.

He’ll wait.

He can do that, now. He can do that in the future.

He knows what Niall’s really saying with that quiet, door jam held, “Can we just, chill tonight?”

And the next time, he’s gonna say “yeah, course,” and put away the joints.

Next time won’t be a next time.

 

 

 

**Author's Note:**

> so, this fic is a bit of an exploration on two fronts. 
> 
> the first: stylistic. i have wanted, for a very long time to write a piece that did not rely on pronouns to describe a person, did not put pronouns as the forefront of the end-all to gender. i wanted to push myself to see if it was possible, and more than that - if it could be natural, could be seamless, could be unnoticeable.
> 
> the second: topical. i have also wanted, for a long time, to expand on the idea of gender as a mutable, ambiguous thing sometimes felt more in your chest and in the shake of your muscles - than the marrow of your bones. we're lacking those narratives. i think gender deserves more words about how it may be scary and confusing and not have a solid answer. i think i wanna try and write that in as many ways as possible.
> 
> i hope, that other people also believe in this kind of exploration; of fic and of self.


End file.
